Product Description

How many of these questions can you answer without calling the New York Public Library's Telephone Reference Service?

Who really designed the American flag?

How hot is the sun's surface?

How does quicksand work?

When was the Ark of the Covenant last seen?

Who sat at the Algonquin Round Table?

Where does the name "The Grateful Dead" come from?

Why is Christmas abbreviated as Xmas?

Can any creatures besides humans get a sunburn?

How many muscles does it take to smile? To frown?

Why are rabbits' feet considered good luck?

You could, of course, do all the painstaking research yourself. Or you could pick up the phone and call the resourceful, erudite, quick-witted librarians of the New York Public Library's Telephone Reference Service, Tel Ref, for whom questions like these are all in a day's work. For the past twenty years, Tel Ref has met the information needs of a public as diverse as the subjects in the Library's catalog, and now they've compiled their most interesting, unusual, and most-often-asked queries into The Book of Answers -- a delight for browsers, a treasure trove of fascinating information, and the perfect companion to The New York Public Library Desk Reference.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1304884 in Books
• Published on: 1992-04-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 311 pages

From Library Journal
What do NYPL librarians do with the most popular, peculiar, and humorous questions asked over a 20-year period? Find the answers, organize them into 27 subject areas, compile a 1300-term index, and publish it all in a book, of course. The result has enough whos, whens, wheres, whats, and whys to drive even the most dedicated trivia buff mad. (Who invented the brassiere? What is the longest recorded attack of hiccupping? Why are manholes round?) Although sources are not cited, the introductory material notes that each answer is based on documentation in the library's extensive collection. Use the New York Public Library Desk Refer ence ( LJ 7/89) as a primary reference source; purchase this for its entertainment value, or as a gift for the reference librarian who has everything.
- Stanley P. Hodge, Ball State Univ. Lib., Muncie, Ind.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ingram
The dedicated and quick-witted staff of librarians from the New York Public Library Telephone Reference Service has compiled some of its strangest and most-asked questions into this delightfully readable book. Subjects range from history and culture to language and science, and a special section on trick questions and popular delusions in also included.

About the Author
Barbara Beruner has headed the New York Public Library's Telephone Reference Service since 1986. She and her staff of ten reference librarians are based in the Library's Mid-Manhattan Branch. Meunda Corey and George Ochoa are the authors of The Man in Lincoln's Nose: Funny, Profound, and Quotable Quotes of Screenwriters, Movie Stars, and Moguls and several other books. Ms. Corey is the coauthor of The Official Couch Potato Cookbook.

Customer Reviews

EVER HEARD OF A GREAT DACHSHUND? -- YOU WILL HERE
Calling the reference desk at your public library has always been one of the quickest and easiest ways to get a question answered or a bit of research done. Questions asked range from the serious to the ludicrous, but, almost without exception, they get answered. Barbara Berliner, head of the New York Library's Telephone Reference Service since 1986 has compiled a list of some of the more interesting questions and answers from this period. The result of this effort is THE BOOK OF ANSWERS.

THE BOOK OF ANSWERS is another of those books that can best be reviewed by citing some of the questions and answers that make up the text. The librarians' ability to answer some of the questions asked makes one wonder how they are able to do so.

Here are just a few examples.

When asked about the most unlikely mating between dogs, Ms. Berliner and her staff came up with a mating between a male Dachshund and a female Great Dane. The resulting litter contained 13 "Great Dachshunds" who were distinguished by their short legs and large heads.

For "Lucy" fans: "I Love Lucy" ran for 6 seasons from 1951 to 1957.

A bit of baseball trivia: The first fine in baseball was levied on June 19, 1846 in the amount of 6 cents for swearing at an umpire.

More trivia: Of all the known animal species, only pigs and human beings get sunburned.

For convenience, the book is broken up into 27 categories which even include one of trick questions such as: "Where in the Bible does it say that cleanliness is next to godliness?" The short answer is "Nowhere."

There are lots of questions and answers on serious subjects such as history, culture, language, fine arts, etc. THE BOOK OF ANSWERS is ideal for flipping open to any page at random and finding some interesting bit of trivia. What fun!

fun book
As a reference librarian, it's always fun to have confirmation that other libraries get strange questions. This is a fun compendium of popular and not-so-popular questions.

That said, I am more than slightly disturbed that they do not cite their sources. I'm not saying that I doubt the answers that are given, it's just unusual that they're not not saying where the answers came from....

But it's still a fun book.

Love those librarians
Reference librarians are the colest, and this book proves it. It's fun to pick a random page and learn something new-- perfect for the passenger to read out loud on a road trip.